Ironically, Eddie goes against these views when he tries to break up Catherine and Rodolfo, ignoring Alfieri’s advice that Catherine is a ‘free agent’ and that Rodolfo has not done anything illegally wrong by proposing to her. He contradicts himself by carrying out the unforgivable. Eddie telephones Immigration from a small payphone near his house and reports the two cousins.
“I want to report something. Illegal immigrants…
Four- Forty one Saxton Street, Brooklyn, yeah. Ground floor.”
The change of Eddie is traced from the moment that Rodolfo charms Catherine by singing ‘Paper Doll and Eddie feels injustice as he had treated Catherine as if she was his own child and Catherine is distancing herself from him.
“Gave her the food out of his mouth.”
Eddie gave Catherine an excellent paid education so that she could get a high paid job and socialise with middle class people and certainly not with Rodolfo. Therefore, Eddie is justified to feel jealous and a certain amount of spite against Rodolfo.
Eddie is the contributor to the theme of incestuous love that he has towards Catherine and jealousy towards Rodolfo. Although, some may argue that Eddie is too over protective of Catherine because he cares for like a parent, I disagree. This is evident at the beginning when Eddie tells Catherine:
“Katie, you are walking wavy! I don’t like the
looks they’re givin’ you in the candy store.”
This is because Catherine was wearing a short skirt and Eddie did not want other men to think that she was an ‘easy’ girl and get the wrong impression about her and take advantage of her. When Catherine replies that all the girls in the neighbourhood wear short skirts, Eddie replied that “You ain’t ‘all the girls,” suggesting that Catherine is special girl that Eddie almost owns. Eddie is obsessed with Catherine’s physical appearance and in a sexual way and wants her to cover her up so that no man can ‘steal’ her from him. (This sexual not parentally way can be seen when Eddie asks Catherine to turn 180 degrees so he can view her skirt from the back, which is not what normal parents or guardians ask for.) In addition, this is further evident from the situation that while Eddie is shaving; Catherine is in the bath, which is usually what couples do, as they are sexually intimate anyway.
It was Eddie’s stubbornness in not letting Catherine ‘flee from the nest’ that created the Greek Tragedy ending. Eddie was so obsessed with Catherine that he neglected Beatrice in some ways, such as not carrying out his husband duties of sexual intercourse.
“When am I gonna be a wife again, Eddie? It’s almost three months.”
Beatrice complains, quite rightly that she has not had sex with Eddie for nearly three months and she does later in the play, does suspect about Eddie’s infatuation with Catherine. His wife says to him that Catherine has to find love some time and the only way that he can stay with her is to marry her. Eddie denied reply is very hesitant and does not seem true so I think that Beatrice saw through act but stays with him, nevertheless. This self-interest of Eddie’s effects the other characters of the play. This destroys his marriage with wit h Beatrice, his relationship with Catherine and eventually himself as he was killed deriving from this. Unfortunately, it is only at the end of the play that Eddie realises that Beatrice loves him and he loves Beatrice and should not have neglected her as much.
He also accepts that he could have not had Catherine fully and if he were willing to give and take, his fate would have been different. This is in stated unconvincingly at the end:
“Now I know how wrong he was, and his death useless…
He allowed himself to be wholly known…
And yet it is better to settle for half, it must be!”
This quote is from Alfieri who was Eddie’s lawyer. He summarises the play well because the plot is based on Eddie’s actions and him not allowing Catherine natural freedom to find love and be happy. But the conclusion of the play is open ended as Alfieri says that he is not sure about whether Eddie’s actions were wrong and even goes to class Eddie as the hero of the play. So Alfieri can comprehend what Eddie did and respects him for that. This shows strong impact of Eddie’s character, if he is mentioned in the conclusion, to the play and how he strongly affects the actions of other characters of the play.
Eddie believes that Rodolfo is gay (though this could because of, he is jealous of Rodolpho for ‘stealing’ Catherine away from him) because Rodolfo sings, dresses, knits and looks “pretty enough to kiss.” Eddie does not trust Rodolfo and thinks that he is only seeking for Catherine’s love to get his American passport so he can stay in the country. However, I oppose Eddie’s view and think that Rodolfo only wants the American passport to get employment and loves Catherine sufficiently for marriage.
Eddie expresses his view on Rodolfo’s sexuality in metaphorical terms when he made a comment about oranges being painted orange to cover their real identity. Eddie implies that Rodolfo is hiding his true self and is a closet homosexual.
“I heard that paint the oranges to…look orange…
Yeah, I heard that they grow like green.”
Eddie is staring in Rodolfo ’s direction while saying this, seemingly meaningless conversation at first sight, and I do not think that Rodolfo realises to defend himself.
Eddie is a large impact of the play because he has power over all the main characters of the play, until the end. Eddie has certain power over his loyal and dutiful wife, Beatrice who gives him advice but he does not listen and to Catherine who is so obedient that she turned down a job because of what Eddie had said. Eddie also has authority over Marco and Rodolfo, especially at the beginning, because the two brothers depend on Eddie’s hospitality to keep them in the country. Consequently, Rodolfo and Marco need to show courteous and politeness towards Eddie as he has a strong characteristic and so they can only hit back at Eddie in beating or embarrass the competitive man, Eddie at something. An example of this is when Eddie was teaching, a hopeless, Rodolfo boxing and Marco deciding to regain some of his brother’s pride from Eddie. Marco challenges Eddie to lift a chair on one knee as well as one hand behind his back. (This is a very difficult task and Marco must have practised quite a bit to challenge Eddie.) Eddie agrees to the challenge but fails famously, several times, making an excuse on why he can not perform the dare.
“It’s on an angle, that why, heh?”
Eddie blames his failure on the angle the chair and got further ashamed when Marco completed the task first time. This leaves anger and tension between Marco and Eddie and the reason why Eddie diverted his hatred more to Marco at the end.
Catherine’s innocence is also pronounced in the play to some extent. Catherine shows this characteristic particularly at the start of the book. This is when Eddie disapproves of her skirt and Catherine genuinely does not realise that her skirt is giving give men in the street the wrong impression as she is almost in tears afterwards. This conveys Catherine’s naivety and vulnerability. Catherine views Eddie as her dad because she gets upset over Eddie’s disapproval about her appearance, runs after him fetching him cigars and beer seeking for Eddie’s approval. Catherine barricades herself with Beatrice and is closer to Eddie than her aunt and so when Catherine received the stenographer job, she immediately phoned Eddie to get his view.
“I should take the job…it’s someplace by Navy Yard.”
“I don’t like the neighbourhood over there.”
Catherine is so naïve that she takes Eddie advice of not accepting the job, that it affects her life position as she would have took the job if Eddie was not her guardian.
Catherine’s naivety also shows when Eddie tells his views on Rodolfo and she begins to doubt Rodolfo herself and confronts Rodolfo about this:
“Would you still want to do it if it turned out we had to go live in Italy.”
“No… Do you think I would carry on my back the rest of my life,
a woman I didn’t love just to be an American?”
Rodolfo guesses that Eddie influences this suspicion so it does not affect his relationship with her so her innocence does not have a big impact on the play in this case. Catherine actually still defends Eddie even after his false accusations and then realises finally from Rodolfo that she needs to escape from Eddie’s clasp.
“He was good to me…He was always the sweetest guy…
I don’t know anything, teach me, Rodolfo, hold me.”
Catherine changes her mind about Eddie and at the middle stages of the play and her innocence does not show and is strengthened as an independent woman when Eddie does not permit Beatrice to attend her wedding. So, Catherine becomes less innocent towards the end of the play when she is not taken to Eddie’s words any more and she makes her own choices.
Although, she does say, in some ways, apologise just before Eddie dies, showing that Eddie can easily influence her again if he was to stay alive.
“Eddie, I never meant to do nothing bad to you.”
“A View from the Bridge” is very dependant on Eddie’s character to structure the play and Eddie’s character is mentioned and effects everyone in the play directly and indirectly because of his authority, stubbornness and Sicilian background. The play is about Eddie as Alfieri mentions him in the intro and epilogue of the play and so his character is ver important to the ending of the play. Meanwhile, Catherine’s innocence was caused partly by Eddie’s character and so the play is less reliant on this for the plot to develop. Catherine’s innocence is important nevertheless because if her innocence was not there, she would have left Eddie sooner and so Eddie would have less control over her.
